Adlestrop re-visited

On the train from London this afternoon we had an unexpected (& unwanted...) stop , preceded by a brief announcement that we had to pick up a “railway fitter”.

As we drew slowly in (although it is April , not June, and the setting is by no means as rural) I was instantly put in mind of Edward Thomas’ poem “Adlestrop” , written just before the start of WW1 , a conflict in which he was killed just three years later.

Yes, I remember Adlestrop --
The name, because one afternoon
Of heat the express-train drew up there
Unwontedly. It was late June.

The steam hissed. Someone cleared his throat.
No one left and no one came
On the bare platform. What I saw
Was Adlestrop -- only the name

And willows, willow-herb, and grass,
And meadowsweet, and haycocks dry,
No whit less still and lonely fair
Than the high cloudlets in the sky.

And for that minute a blackbird sang
Close by, and round him, mistier,
Farther and farther, all the birds
Of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire.